Roberts Family Blog

Hey all!  Well today we had the much anticipated evaluation by Early Childhood Intervention.  If you'll recall, Hayden's pediatrician was concerned about his pronounciation at his 2 yr appointment, so we went ahead and scheduled a consult.  Today two nice ladies from the program came out; one to concentrate on his speech and cognition, and one on his gross and fine motor skills, as well as his social and emotional development.

I was a little bit nervous about the whole deal because as a mother you want to believe that you are giving your child the best start, and I did not want to hear that something as important as speech was going to be a struggle for him.  But at the same time I knew we needed the evaluation so we could get him extra help if necessary.  The appointment was actually really fun for Hayden!  I had told him two friends were going to be coming over to play, and play they did!  They brought puzzles, blocks, and crayons, and had him perform various tasks with them.  For instance, the therapist stacked the blocks in a particular pattern and asked Hayden to do the same with his - and shockingly he did!  She also asked him to give her three blocks, and to stack the blocks in a tower (and then he kept knocking them over and yelling WIPEOUT).  He was very good at all those tasks and I'm thinking I need to get him some blocks to play with!  They also asked him about colors, shapes, letters and numbers, which he knows pretty well.  A lot of the evaluation was simple questions directed at me, about his various behaviors.  For example, does he ask for help (yes), does he know his last name (no), does he express emotions as in telling you he is happy / sad / mad etc (yes), does he say please and thank you when prompted (yes), does he show concern when Pierce is crying (yes), can he dress himself (no), does he asked questions (yes!!) and so on.  He sang for them, and colored, and basically showed off like the little entertainer that he is!

They were able to give us their assessment right away and it turns out he is doing well in all categories!  They basically score them in a way that correlates to an age in months.  He is 26 months and here is how he scored:

Cognition - 35+ months

Self Help / Adaptive - 30+ months

Communication - 28 months

Gross / Fine Motor - 27 months

Social Emotional - 35+ months

The speech therapist actually told us she wouldn't touch him with a 30 foot pole and that he is doing great with his speech and communication.  Some of the things they recommended working on were learning how to dress himself, learning his last name, and being able to draw simple lines and patterns that we show him first.  But overall they passed him with flying colors and he does not qualify for their services.

I'm thrilled I got him evaluated because I now know what his strengths and weaknesses are and what kinds of things we can work on going forward.  They gave me a helpful little matrix about which sounds he should be able to form at various ages.  For instance now he should be saying p,b,m etc, whereas the f sound isn't expected until they are 3.  So it was very informative and also very reassuring that he is so well rounded and on target!

With that great evaluation this morning we are on our way to a great weekend ahead.  We have a good friend from California coming to visit, and the boys' great grandparents are also coming from Wisconsin.  Busy busy!  I hope the dreary weather lifts so we can enjoy some outings to the pumpkin patch and the Dallas Arboretum.  Good bye for now!